December 06, 2016

Have any last minute shopping to do? Writers in your life? A gorgeous leather embossed cover would be nice!December 6th: St. Nick’s Day

Father Christmas, St. Nickolas, Kris Kringle and Santa Claus have ancient traditional roots in America, England, Germany, Greece and Holland where he is known as Sinterklaas. Father Christmas is typically a jovial, kind and compassionate figure although in In Austro-Bavarian folklore, Santa is celebrated as Krampus, a"half-goat, half-demon” figure, who visits “bad” children during the Christmas season in order to punish them, often in quite frightening ways.

December 6th is St. Nicholas Day, celebrated in our family when I was a child, as a cookie baking and decorating day to ready packages for relatives and neighbors. This day was also dedicated to the of making of seemingly endless strings of popcorn and cranberry chains for the Christmas tree. My mother was a great proponent of putting the dry, needle dropping, post holiday tree in the back yard with the popcorn and cranberry garlands still in place, for what she referred to as ‘the winter bird feast’.

In Germany and the Netherlands, the pagan roots of Christmas embody a seasonal edginess in the form of supernatural and ghostly Yule figures (think Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol) and associations with Odin or Jólnir, (Yule Figure ) or Langvaror (Long Beard). Scholars of folklore attest to the fact that modern Santa Claus figures are rooted in the Odin archetype, the old, cloaked and hooded figure riding the mid-winter sky on his horse, Sleipnir, the Gift Bringer of the North, visiting his people with well earned presents.

Oberon Design provides annual charitable contributions to many local organizations in Sonoma and Napa Counties in CA. We focus on pre-school education, the Napa Chapter of the Voena Children’s Choir (http://www.voena.org ) and the non-profit Dovetail Learning with it’s Toolbox ™ curricula (watch an amazing video of children on their home page: https://dovetaillearning.org ). We also provide annual donations to several non profit watershed, tree planting and environmental organizations doing wonderful work locally.

Non-locally we are currently heavy supporters of Wikipedia which we use on a daily basis. Oberon Design also has a program that directly funds the Urban Bee Lab in Berkeley CA ( http://www.helpabee.org/?lang=en ) with 5% donations for every bee themed product we sell. This really adds up by the end of the year! The Urban Bee Lab’s mission focuses on education, supporting bee populations and seeking solutions to the decline of honey bees and the potential pollination crisis.

Thanks for reviewing our ‘give back’ in the world! We hope you will continue to support our products, made in Sonoma County, California and the organizations we chose to support. Happy Shopping! Everyone at Oberon thanks you!

November 24, 2016

Wild turkeys (Meleagris gallapavo) were first domesticated and bred by the Aztecs and were taken to Europe in the 16th century by Spanish invaders. They became popular in England within twenty years. We don’t know with certainty that Pilgrims ate turkey at the ‘first’ Thanksgiving, but these birds would have been familiar to colonists. It’s more likely they ate ducks, geese and swans. Have a marvelous meal and great time feeling grateful! Cheers! The Oberon Team.